Snowling
by Virodeil
Summary: *Caught Is Caught Is Cuddled Series* – Quietly flush with the long-fought-for success of his first combat trial, a 400-year-old Loki sneaks into the land of Asgard's bitter enemy to prove himself a capable warrior. He is soon attracted to all the new wonders he finds, like a moth to fire. And just like a moth, he gets closer, and closer, and closer, and… well….


Snowling  
By Rey

**Quietly flush with the long-fought-for success of his first combat trial, but feeling that the achievement is unappreciated, a 400-year-old Loki sneaks into the land of Asgard's bitter enemy to prove himself a capable warrior. He is soon attracted to all the new wonders he finds, like a moth to fire. And just like a moth, he gets closer, and closer, and closer, and… well….**

Story notes:  
1. A 400-year-old ás in my universe would be comparable to a 7-year-old human, or a little bit more. Meanwhile, for a jötun, that age would be comparable to a 5-year-old or less. Also in my universe, Asgard is a more warrior-oriented culture than Jötunheim – or at least, than Jötunheim used to be, before the Asgard-Jötunheim war, and the concurrent Jötunheim civil war in Rey-verse.  
2. The style of the story is a mosaic of experiences, senses and thoughts in little snippets. It may be confusing and disorienting. I can only apologise in advance. My muse totally refused to write it any other way. And because this story had been too long as a mere idea – just a summary – in a mostly empty doc file, while I longed to see how it would unfurl, I caved in to her demand. I hope you like it, nonetheless! – Comments, criticisms, ideas and discussions would be welcome. And if the ending looks shaky, bizarre or otherwise unbelievable, you could blame the stomach flu that is _still_ ravaging me after 4 days.

There is no cheering. There is no celebration. There is no congratulation, except for an absent-minded one from Father and a half-hearted one from Mother.

I passed my first combat trial, _at long last_, and got _nothing_ for all the effort and hurts along the way.

Nothing except for sharp criticisms and ridicule, that is. I ought to have passed the trial two centuries ago, after all.

Loki the weak. Loki the meek. Loki the _ergi_.

All _wrong_. I shall prove them all _wrong_.

The air before me moves slowly in my seiðr's perception, with a hypnotic wave-like eb-and-flow.

The gate. I have found the gate. After a year of searching _everywhere_ and avoiding _everyone_.

Thor thought I was a coward, hiding from all the ridicule. – I shall _show_ him. I was just preparing for this. I am _not_ a coward. I shall defeat the jötnar – or at least a few of them – for Asgard. They will not – _cannot_ – mock my skills and courage, after that.

The land of the monsters feels… eerie.

Jagged ice, gleaming faintly under a weak sunlight, litters the landscape from horizon to horizon. But it is not what is presently making me shift from foot to foot with discomfort. No, it is not.

I have never seen this. I have never been here. But everything in this land – the air, the ambience, the ice and snow crunching softly beneath my boots, _the lack of biting chill_ – feels, somehow, _familiar_.

What could ever possibly make _Jötunheim_, the pitiful waste of a home of the frost giants, familiar to _me_, Loki Odinson, the second prince of _Asgard_?

Well, I must ask Father and Mother that, once I am victorious and back from this barbaric place.

For now, I must find a hidden, easily defensible shelter to collect myself, as all my parents and tutors have long drilled in me.

Maybe, after this, I can bring home stories about strategising for a good strike in the land of enemy, as well.

Now I know why it is not surprising that the jötnar were decimated so easily by Asgard's army, aside from the fact of our military might. A place to regroup is a must in times of war, after all, as I have read and General Týr has told me and Thor. But I have found almost nothing that can even be _generously_ categorised as "shelter" all this while.

And I know that it has been a _long, longwhile_, in which I have walked for uncountable miles, shed all but one layer of my clothes, and been in a close lookout for both dangers and a place to rest.

This wretched place is populated _only_ by icy cliffs, icy hillocks, icy mounds, icy paths amidst all the other icy wreckages, and icy potholes that have sent me sprawling _numerous times_.

There is neither game to hunt for sustenance nor source of flowing water to drink to be found, at that.

And _stupidly_, in my haste, I have neglected to stock up on food and water.

So now I am exhausted in body and mind, sore all over, terribly hungry, even more horribly thirsty…

…And homesick, _too_, for _any_ kind of company that I could so easily find at home, _just_ to forget the feel of this completely desolate wasteland.

Just so that I will not feel so afraid and abandoned.

What a "warrior" I have turned out to be!

Night brings with it a drop in temperature, even greater thirst and hunger, and even deeper exhaustion.

And still, I trudge along the horrible, meandering, nearly nonexistent path that leads to… wherever it leads. Calling for Heimdal's assistance to get home is a very, very stupid idea, after all, equal to staying still and hoping for rescue.

By now, all thoughts of fighting and subduing a few frost giants have long fled my mind.

I would even _barter for food_ with them, if I saw any, and if I did not end up as food, myself.

But before food, there is one more pressing matter to deal with: _water to drink_. Because, unbelievably, despite the noticeable drop in temperature, and despite the fact that I have not put my additional layers of clothing back on, I am feeling rather _overheated_.

There is still nothing drinkable wherever I look, though. Also, with the drop in temperature, there is less snow to stuff into my mouth should the situation become more desperate, and instead more ice that can so easily trip me.

And just as that thought passes through the fore of my increasingly lethargic mind, my left foot lands on a sleek patch, just as my right foot swings up for another tired step.

I cannot even let out a cry, as my achy body slams down heavily onto the ice and proceeds to shoot downhill, _extra fast_.

And then, the icy, bumpy slide spits me into thin air…

…Only for me to flop bonelessly into a huge mound of snow, which eagerly swallows me whole.

Dazedly, a thought passes through my mind: Oh, well, I did contemplate eating snow to cool my body temperature down and battle my thirst, did I not?

And then, I know no more, for seemingly a moment and an age.

The first thing that I am aware of is that the air has become rather thin… or is it thick?… and stale, harder to breathe in.

The second thing that I realise is that something a little bit heavy and a little bit wet has been wrapped snugly round me from head to toe.

The third thing that I feel is all-encompassing lethargy and dazedness, worse than before.

And then, the next thing that I remember grips me with terror and confusion: I _fell_, and I fell _into_ a deep snowbank, before I apparently _lost consciousness_. So how am I still _alive_? Not suffocated? Not freezing?

And how has my thirst been somehow slaked? I do remember I have _not_ eaten any of the snow before I was no longer aware of my surroundings.

Some of my hunger has even been satisfied, at that.

I do remember it was a _deep_ bank of snow, too, with nothing solid nearby. But now my clumsily reaching hands have just struck what feel like some rocky surface, shortly below my battered body.

Huh. Is there a chance that my body has somehow _absorbed_ the snow while I was unconscious? Like some animal I have ever read about, which survives in a desert by absorbing water vapour from the air? But I have never experienced anything like this before! Or else my bathwater would have decreased while I luxuriated in it for long candlemarks each time I took a bath, which was _often_.

Well, I can think on it some more while back on the trail, I suppose. So, frowning, I fight my way to open air with heavy, mostly _un_coordinated strokes of my arms.

A nearly blinding sunlight greets me as soon as my head breaks free from the snow, unfortunately. It sees me diving back into the stuff, with a surprised and pained yelp that I cannot stifle.

Fear strikes me. – Am I still on Jötunheim? Am I still in the same spot I was last? If I am, then _why_ is the sunlight so blinding? It was quite dim before!

And how will I be able to continue my journey if I cannot even suffer sunlight on my eyes? How will I spot dangers or possible sustenance if I am blinded?

Or did I hit my head on something after I had fallen into the snow? – I am yet to be accepted into a healer's apprenticeship; Head Healer Eir promised to test me for the programme once I turn a millennium old; but I have read lots of healing books. And one of the books mentioned concussion in relation to loss or oversensitivity of hearing and/or sight.

Uh-oh.

What should I do now? What if I am indeed suffering from concussion? Should I give up and call for Heimdal? What if he refuses to aid me?

Can I stay still for some more time? How can I check for injuries on my own self?

Can I travel through the snow, to avoid the harsh sunlight? As stale and thin the air in here is, I am apparently still able to breathe in it….

What a decision to make! I feel like one of the generals in the last war, faced with a dangerous conundrum that would mean the life and death of his troops…

…Except, of course, for the fact that the life and death in question is my own, and I am in charge of only my miserable self.

Well, in that case….

Crawling _inside_ snow is a truly novel experience. It does not feel claustrophobic at all, surprisingly, and neither does it feel disorienting.

It feels almost _playful_, in fact. As if I were swimming in the lake and about to tug at the waving, wheeling legs of one of Thor's friends, or as if we were playing in the deep mud in the palace's main garden after a long downpour.

But crawling in the snow also necessitates me shucking off my boots, and also most of my clothes and weapons, and now I feel naked…

…And somehow, strangely, _free_.

Huh. No. I shall _not_ think of such things right now; or ever, for that matter, if I can help it. My adventure in this barbaric land has been too surreal for even the wildest fireside stories, thus far! Nobody will believe me; I will just be ridiculed _more_ for telling such tales; so why would I ruminate closely about all these stupid sensations?

It is… _freaky_, that it feels _comfortable_ to walk barefooted in just one's loincloth _at night_ on _Jötunheim_. – The air is pleasantly cool. The bright moonlight from the three moons overhead gives everything a soft, peaceful glow. The slickest ice feels the best on my bare feet.

In short, I feel like a _jötun_, and I _hate_ it. I can do nothing but bemoan my current situation, all the same, for I have left my boots and clothes and everything else far behind in the snow somewhere.

And presently, I cannot even indulge in private cursing on my hasty decision to come here, for my ears have picked up on noises – voices? – up ahead, carried by the soft tendrals of cool breezes.

Some jötnar? Or maybe some other foolish adventurers? Animals? Outworlder invaders? Merchant stupid enough to brave everything to trade for anything valuable in the slightest in this wasteland?

I creep closer, attracted almost helplessly – _by instinct_ – to the sounds. The ice-layered rock formations through which I have been travelling now help me blend in. Footholds and handholds are readily available, and the jagged edges of the protrusions have been smoothed over by new ice – maybe from the melting caused by the day's heat?

There are nooks to stow myself in for a respite, as well, and I make use of such little nests every so often. It feels not so comfortable, curling up in a hole lined with jabby stones. But, at the same time, being enclosed in something cool feels… nice, safe.

Yet another freaky thing that sets me apart from the other Asgardians as an oddity.

Maybe, it is indeed apt for them to call me a freak, then.

The jötnar are… _huge_. Not even the embellished accounts of the war could describe how gigantic they are. The _shortest_ of them that I can see from up here is _at least_ twice the height of a tall Asgardian adult!

And they are… celebrating? Doing a ritual? Congregating for a communal something? – In any case, they are gathered in one place – a swoth of snowy field in front of me and down below – and milling about. They are chattering in an incomprehensible language that sounds… well, _peaceful_, I have to admit; like a busily gurgling and washing brook through various surfaces.

Perched in a sheltered nook on one of the cliffs that border the field, I am curled up into a tight ball and hugging myself, so that I will not succumb to my instinct _and join them_. – Whatever is wrong with me, I really, really do not know and cannot comprehend. Why would a tiny me mingle with stomping humongous brutes?

Although, to be fair, I am yet to see any of them really _stomping_.

In fact, they look too _graceful_ in their movements to be monstrous giants.

To pile on the confusion, presently, a pair of those giants are entering the far side of the field, carrying a huge stone tub between them, which emits fragrant, mouth-watering _steam_. Since when do _frost_ giants deal with _hot_ things?

To top it all off, preceded by the noises that excited children everywhere – _on Asgard_ – make, a group of giants enter from yet another angle some time afterwards. They are herding a handful of _skipping and giggling and chirping_ blue people between them, who are _at most_ a little taller than an Asgardian adult. Are those… _frost giant children_?

And from all the giants present, those with shaved heads are only the… guards? Escorts?… of the… children? While the rest have dark hair ranging in length, texture, darkness of hue, and _shininess_ – of all things!

I bite my lip. The pinpricks of pain it causes can help anchor me to reality, I hope, because everything else feels like a mirror, in which things are the opposite of reality.

The barren, snowy field has, somehow, _transformed_.

The ambience is the most noticeably changed, from where I am seated, as more and more jötnar come together and expand the ever-milling circles. Laughter, excited shouts and snippets of music break the watery noise of the Allspeak-untranslatable language in smaller and smaller intervals. They compete for attention with the sounds of preparation some create with the things they have brought to the gathering: trestle tables, huge bowls and pots and sacks, bolts of various fabrics and furs and leathers, _and many, many more_.

It feels so, so festive.

Too festive _and too civilised_ for a race of gigantic, monstrous brutes.

But it _is_ happening right in front of me and down below, and I cannot detect any illusion in play to create such a scene and such a believable ambiance.

And such believable scents, as well. – My stomach is wringing itself ever tighter for such tempting aromas! If only I could sneak into the gathering and steal one – _or five_ – of those gently steaming bread-stick-like things, at the very least….

If I would be honest to myself, the jötnar do not seem as ugly as stories on Asgard would paint them.

They are dancing now, to a lively, flowing music, the instruments of which reminds me of both water gurgling through a drain and ice striking a crystal goblet. And the sight that my rounded eyes are witnessing compliments the sounds well: Bodies and limbs in various sizes and shades of blue are flowing, undulating and intersecting in rhythm with the melodies.

Voices soon join the harmony of music and dance, singing heartily in that incomprehensible language.

Only when the thirst returns do I realise that I have been humming along with them.

Watching people eat and drink so near and yet so far away is a cruel, cruel torture; one of a kind, _and so very effective_. – I do not know what they are eating. I do not think the ingredients can even grow elsewhere. But the aromas that reach my nose, subtler than those in any other banquets I have ever attended in other realms, are nonetheless tantalising; and _familiar_, to boot, just like many other things in this realm are, somehow.

Maybe, just maybe, I could sneak down there and grab something to eat…? I have mastered believable personal illusion for up to a few candlemarks long, so maybe I could disguise myself as one of them…?

Sadly, presences – _more than just one!_ – are impinging on my sense of surroundings, _getting closer_ from all directions, although not from above. If I move, they will notice, most likely.

But if I do not move….

And if I do not grab the food quickly, even if I do not manage to take any kind of drink in the process….

Oh, well.

The festivity is winding down. Or maybe, it is just getting much more solemn, since there is yet no sign of the merchants – or are they servants? – packing up.

This new state is both a blessing and a curse for me. – I have managed to climb down the cliff using the distraction of the on-going festivity, avoiding the presences that seemed to be about to converge on my former position on the cliff; but now it will be harder to move about, with everyone being so serious and possibly watchful. At the same time, I am glad that I will still have the chance to grab something from one of those trestle tables; but, again, the solemn moment will make it hard for me to navigate all the obstacles undetected.

And I did not count on how _high_ the tables would be in comparison to me, too.

So, sadly and quite unfortunately, I have to press myself in-between a trio of barrels beneath one of the tables, waiting for an opportune moment, while the jötnar that surround the table – and therefore, _me_ – stand still and wait for I do not know what.

Stupidly, I also did not consider how standing surrounded by food that one cannot eat would feel. It is _even more_ of a torture. The smells coming from the barrels–!

A royal-sounding and melodious but rather spirited music bursts forth, just as I am contemplating reaching blindly into one of the barrels using my seiðr. All thoughts of food leave me, then, and I have to press myself even deeper into the small nook offered by the angle of the barrels. The jötnar all round are lowering to their knees and bowing low, that is why. If I am unfortunate enough, one of them could glance to the side and see me! Especially with how their heads are tilted to the side like that; bearing their throats, much like submissive animals.

Distasteful. And very, very inconvenient.

I switch my illusion from a jötun to a complete camouflage, blending myself with the surroundings. As long as I do not make a sound and do not move too fast, the illusion will hold for some time yet.

But I am so, so, so very hungry… and thirsty… and tired….

And there are three barrels of what smell like perfectly edible food all pressed round me….

Somebody is talking in the watery, incomprehensible language up, up ahead. The jötun – a he? A very, very deep-voiced she? A they? – sounds measured, dignified; like _Father_, even, if I dare say so myself. But… they… also genuinely sound appreciative, albeit in a subdued manner, even somewhat wistful; unlike Father in most times, let alone when giving a speech to an audience like this.

Nestled in-between the barrels, I let the calm, steady noise soak in me and wash past me. It _somehow_ sparks a sense of peace and home _in the deepest part of my psyche_, and I really, really, really do not wish to contemplate it, now _or ever_.

Besides, I am much too contented with my pilfered stick of flavoured ice, at present, to think on anything else but the food I am sucking and licking at. – So smooth on the tongue, and pleasantly cool, and rich in taste, and nicely, subtly smelling delicious….

If I knew better, maybe, I would not gorge on the stick of flavoured ice.

Maybe.

Regardless, my stomach hurts for a different reason now – an _opposite_ reason. But the ice stick is not even half-way finished! I had been hungry for so long, and exerted so much energy, _too_, so I should have been able to finish it all without any repercussion, right? I feel so, so cheated, and enraged because of it.

And, _again_, I can do nothing about the injustice, just like I could do nothing to attract genuine, heartfelt praise for me passing my first combat trial.

In fact, it is _worse_, now. I am here in the land of _Asgard's enemy_; I am _incapacitated_ by overfeeding; and I am _unable_ to stifle a pitiful groan _amidst the silence_ in-between the art performances that the crowd has been watching avidly past the initial speech.

And here, the attention that I craved from fellow æsir, the attention that I have been avoiding from the jötnar, is heaped on me, _by the latters_, and it is _because of_ the pathetic, stupid sound.

_Numerous_ eyes are trained on me. Hands are reached out. Concerned, alarmed, soothing murmurs are voiced.

A pair of arms gingerly pry me away from the barrels I have been leaning against, . A thin wail vibrates on my throat and echoes somewhere else, as the movement also tugs painfully on my bulging belly.

A muted commotion breaks, as if answering to the even more pathetic sound my throat has just let escape. It gets closer to me _fast_, like a line of spreading fire through dry woods.

And then the former pair of arms are batted away, and I find myself encased in something that is the most familiar of all things in my life.

Home.

I am home.

I do not know anything else, cannot focus on anything else, but I am home.

A very, very, very familiar power is all round me, drenching me, soaking me to the marrow. But there is nothing frightening or uncomfortably intrusive in it. It is just _home_.

Home like my most primal sense knows. Home like I have unconsciously been craving all my life.

My stomach does not even hurt, now.

Safe. Familiar. Cool. Enclosed. Comfy. Sated.

Sensations and emotions run round and round and round in my head. They are as flowing and ungraspable as the water-like language I vaguely remember.

Well, actually, it is _I_ who refuses to grasp it all, to be fair. Yet I am not in the mood to be fair, or to be anything else, at present. The act of thinking alone is a chore that I feel I can do without.

So I do without it, for a long, long, long while that nonetheless feels like only a moment.

And I am happy about it; contented as I feel I never was.

But then, the environment changes, although some of the sensations remain. It jerks me rudely into wakefulness. And, with my inhibitions lowered, I do not hesitate from making my displeasure known.

It is… shocking, _to say the least_, to open one's eyes at long last and be greeted with the sight of one's nightmares. The perfect comfort – nay, _luxury_ – that I have been feeling, when compared with this waking night-terror….

And worse, I am acutely aware that, presently, _I am cuddled snugly in the arms of the said night-terror_.

Just like _before_.

And _before_, I _loved_ it. I even _fought_ when I was drawn away from it, for the brief time that it took to get back to what I thought was a safe, comfy place.

The place that I know _now_ as the arms of a _frost giant_.

What enthrallment Working has this sly monster laid on me? Is the flavoured ice in truth unsafe to eat by non-jötnar? Did the enchantment lay there? Maybe it was added with a compulsion to cram it into one's mouth in spite of all inhibitions?

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out, not even a sound.

The frost giant _huffs_ to that, of all things it could do. Or maybe it notices my sudden suspicion and displeasure aimed at it and takes offence.

And then, it _playfully_ bops the tip of my nose with a finger.

As if there is nothing wrong with _that_ gesture for an encounter between enemies. As if it could even be construed as _polite_ for a newborn relationship between perfect strangers.

Regardless, there is only one answer to such annoyance; especially one that is repeated and seems to be meant to annoy like this, which reminds me too much of Thor in his brotherly playful mood.

I turn away before the next poke lands on my nose. Then, disregarding how my face is now – _comfily_ – buried against the jötun's chest, I try to wriggle free.

With "try" being the key word, as the jötun can somehow _always_ anticipate my moves…

…_While_ targeting other parts of me – my cheek, my ear, my neck, my armpit – with nimble, playful pokes of its finger.

And then, I am free at last, falling a short distance onto a soft surface that feels like layers of surfaces combined.

Well, _somewhat_ free, because the jötun throws itself down on what may be some kind of bedding after me, and just as playfully tries to wrestle me back into its arms.

It is chuckling all the while, too, as if this is a light, playful game between… family? Friends?

With how deep a jötun's voice can be, from my recent experience, I would even hazard that it is _giggling_.

A jötun. _Giggling_.

An _adult_ jötun, maybe, with how small I am compared to it. And it keeps _giggling_.

Mirror reality, indeed.

And somehow, I do not wish to wake up from this particular dream.

The jötun, too, judging from the sense of bittersweet disbelief I somehow receive from its direction.

And then, in the lull of a surprisingly comfortable and homey moment, as it successfully recaptures me and gathers me back into its arms, it whispers, with emotions roiling behind its wavering voice, "Welcome home, Loptr Laufey-childe. Amma has been missing Loé so, so much."

End notes:

In this fic, Laufey would be about 6 millennia old; about 30 years old in modern human standard, in my universe. And seeing that even my uptight brother could _giggle hard_ because of the antics of his child, I could see no reason why Laufey would behave distantly to their own long-lost child in privacy.

And here the fic ends, folks. It's just a plot bunny that bit me a long, long time ago, which apparently germinated inside my brain and had a long incubation period. And then, in just a week, it bore… this…. Well, I do hope you have been entertained, at least!


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